Advancement of Learning 27 



ponder a ; l so a man may truly say of the schoolmen, Quces- j 

 tionum minutiis scientiarumfrangunt soliditatem. (For were J&quot; 

 it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great y 

 light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about/ 

 with a small watch candle into every corner ?) . 



And such is their method, that rests not so much upon 

 evidence of truth proved by arguments, authorities, 

 similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and 

 solutions of every scruple, cavilation, and objection; 

 breeding for the most part one question as fast as it solveth 

 another ; even as in the former resemblance, when you carry 

 the light into one corner, you darken the rest ; so that the 

 fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to be a lively image of 

 this kind of philosophy or knowledge; which was trans 

 formed into a comely virgin for the upper parts ; but then 



Candida succinctam la trantibus inguina monstris: 8 



so the generalities of the schoolmen are for a while good 

 and proportionable ; but then, when you descend into their 

 distinctions and decisions, instead of a fruitful womb for 

 the use and benefit of man s life, they end in monstrous 

 altercations and barking questions. So as it is not possible 

 but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular 

 .contempt, the people being apt to contemn truth upon 

 occasion of controversies and altercations, and to think they 

 are all out of their way which never meet ; and when they 

 see such digladiation about subtilties, and matters of no use 

 or moment, they easily fall upon that judgment of Diony- 

 sius of Syracuse, Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum. 3 



Notwithstanding, certain it is that if those Schoolmen 

 to their great _ thirst o f U ntTl an d unweariedjtravail of :wi,t 

 had joined variety and universality of reading and con 

 templation, they had proved excellent lights, to the great 

 advancement of all learning and knowledge: but as they 

 are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark 

 keeping: but as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their 

 pride inclined to leave the oracle of God s word, and to 

 vanish in the mixture of their own inventions; so in the 

 inquisition of nature, they ever left the oracle of God s works, 



1 Rerum pondera minutissimis sententiis fregit. Quint, de Inst. 

 Oral. x. i. 



2 Virg. Ed. vi. 75. 3 Diog. Laert. iii. 18 (Vit. Platonis). 



